What kind of story do you want to live

Seeing someone in their element, where their individual aptitudes and personal passion come together, is contagious. I recently spoke to Blake Mycoskie, founder and Chief shoe giver of TOMS Shoes (www.toms.com). Mycoskie, 33, is a serial entrepreneur who has started five other successful businesses. He established TOMS shoes, however, as a heartfelt response to a need, rather than a venture to capitalize on niche in the market. The impetus came while visiting Argentina and seeing scores of shoeless children, many of whom had to walk miles for water with sores on their feet. TOMS Shoes exists to supply children in need with shoes, what those in the world of philanthropy call a social enterprise. The plight of the children he saw in Argentina was the catalyst for Mycoskie to combine his entrepreneurial bent with his life-long desire to make the world a better place.

As I listened to Mycoskie explain how his visit to Argentina altered the course of his life, I couldn’t help musing about how I might use my talents, as a writer, and my other skills, and mostly my heart, to respond to some of the problems I see in the world.

Perhaps Santa Monica, where TOMS headquarters is located, was my Argentina.

My big, fat idea

Like Mycoskie, I want to help poor children know how much they matter, but the thing that has been on my radar for years is a little different: I want to learn, and teach others, how to become less of a consumer. I believe this is vitally important because it’s a big step in helping people come truly alive. Each time we learn to sever a tie with Corporate is a true departure from the toxic part of American culture; it’s a step away from the limited socioeconomic templates into which we are shoved since birth.

I am increasingly alarmed at how much of our lives we’ve given away to industry, becoming more and more like the sad, blobby people in Disney’s Wall-E. We’ve let clever (and not so clever) marketing folks tell us what to wear, what kind of house to live in, how and where to eat, and how to spend our free time.

And the more I talk with people about this, the deeper, and often times more disturbing, levels of influence I see this has over us. To me, the saddest thing about all this  is that Christianity in the U.S. is just a part of our consumer culture for the most part. It’s hard to find another route in life.

Swimming against the tide

I’m not completely sure how to reclaim our lives, but I’m pretty sure it has to do with learning to value family, community, social justice, ecological sustainability, and other aspects of our lives differently. I’ve read about families who say they live really rich, full lives on a limited budget. I want to learn to do that while most of my five children still live in my house. I’m interested in pursing a life of passion, one of interdependent community, where skills and resources are pooled, where the economy is more about bartering of goods and skill that buying products and services, where acquiring skills matters more than hiring professionals to fix everything, and where honest conversation rather than theater-style preaching, prevails.

For my part, I’m experimenting with learning to farm vegetables and raise chickens. I also hope to raise grass-fed beef and share garden space with like-minded people on my 2 acres in Snohomish, Washington. I’m beginning to dabble in bartering goods and services. Also, for the last couple of years my family hasn’t attended a traditional church. Instead we’ve been meeting for large, lengthy and scrumptious  dinners with two other families. We eat, drink, and talk about all kinds of things. Lots of toasting and celebrating life.

Forces to contend with

But there’s lots of challenge before me on this path. Most of my property is currently a thorny wilderness. I’m afraid to even think about leaving the comfort and security of my paycheck, with its health benefits and retirement plan, from my corporate job. Most of my like-minded friends don’t gel together, which makes working together difficult. I’m also afraid of really connecting my natural aptitude with my passion, as Mycoskie has, because then there would  be no excuses. Yet when I so much as dip my toe in those waters, I feel alive and vital, like what I do really matters.

Help along the way

And I hope to win a spot at Donald Miller’s Live A Better Life seminar (www.donmilleris.com/conference). Why? I write in a journal all the time. That’s how I’ve always been, carrying around a binder and scribbling. I only seem to learn by writing. This habit led to a career in writing, though often I write marketing-oriented materials. But I want to transition my writing career. I want to write about my real stories, and the stories of others, that emerge from actively choosing to live better stories, that is to dare to discover what inspires the best parts of us and to beging acting on them. I think Miller’s seminar can help me because Blue Like Jazz and A Million Miles have been real turning points for me because of their honest look at Christian spirituality, and because, even though he’s nine years younger than I am, Miller has spent more time in these waters than I have.

I tried to embed a video of Miller’s seminar, but was unable to do so, but here’s a link to it. Click this and Don himself  will tell you about the fantastic seminar.

http://vimeo.com/12011394

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